


I need you (by my side)

by lovelywanderer



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: BAMF Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Billy Hargrove Deserves Better, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, How Do I Tag, Keep Max happy, M/M, Maxine "Max" Mayfield Needs a Hug, Moving On, Past Harringrove, Post-Season/Series 03, Sad with a Happy Ending, Steve Harrington Deserves Love, Stranger Things 3, The duffer brothers made me cry, cathartic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21797920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelywanderer/pseuds/lovelywanderer
Summary: Max can’t breathe.It’s been hours since she watched her idiot brother fall in shadows and fragments and I’m sorry and she still can’t breathe.Everything passes in blurs, someone pulling her away from the body, El’s arms wrapping around her as everything breaks.Or: Giving Max the break she needs because the Duffer Brothers really decided to put her through it.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair, Steve Harrington & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Steve Harrington/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 75





	I need you (by my side)

It hurts to _breathe_.

It’s been hours since she watched her ~~_couldhavebeen_ ~~ idiot brother fall in shadows and fragments and _I’m sorry_ and she still can’t breathe.

Everything passes in blurs, someone pulling her away from the body, El’s arms wrapping around her as everything breaks.

She’s sitting on someone’s couch. staring at nothing as Steve sits next to her, head hanging, hands covering his face, leg bouncing up and down up and down. 

Billy was an asshole, she knows he was, but he made her feel less alone in her short-tempered, red-hot anger filled life. He felt like family just a little, for a moment, but it slipped away before she could be his family right back

She should be relieved. It’s over, really over, but it feels as if someone stole a bit of her. Max is so so so ~~sad~~ angry and blank and can only shake her head as Joyce hands her a warm mug with a kind _do you need to talk about it honey?_ Because she’s not okay, none of them are, but it’s over and maybe now they can live without fear.

* * *

The days go by in a sort of suspended animation. The Byers leave, taking her only female friend with them, and all their belongings packed in tight boxes, sealed with grief.

Everyday gets a bit easier and she finds herself getting lost in the light moments with Lucas and in her last moments with El.

Steve drives her everywhere now, and they sit silent with a mixtape playing that she took from Billy’s room, right before ~~her stepdad~~ Neil, threw everything she couldn’t save away. The denim jacket wasn’t there when she looked for it, and she doesn't mention that she’s seen in hanging in Steve's closet, unworn and losing its smell.

* * *

Neil gets meaner and Susan gets meeker until one day Max loses it. Every time she bit her tongue proved futile as her anger erupts out in _Why would you let him hurt us? Protect me cause I’m tired of holding this_ ~~_home_ ~~ _hell up by myself._ It was only a matter of time before she exploded, after all, she wasn't carrying only her anger anymore, Billy's had settled right between her shoulder blades, and she wouldn't let herself think about how heavy it must have been for him to live with it. 

They move out within the week, leaving Neil spewing insults and curses as he stands in the doorway, beet red. It's the perfect _fuck you_ , and Max can almost hear Billy's strong voice telling her _there you go shitbird, there's MadMax._ She feels like herself again, just a little. 

Over the next three years, Max and her mom turn a crappy little apartment in town into a home. She spends her days wearing band shirts that swamp her, stretched from Billy's bigger body, that her mother frowns at but wouldn't dare say anything about, and hanging out with Lucas. (She still dumps his ass whenever she feels like it).

Eventually, Steve and Robin pack their things into the trunk of his car and give everyone teary goodbyes as they drive away to the city, leaving only loving friends and devastating memories behind. Before he leaves, Steve hands Max the jacket with a sad smile and pulls her into the biggest hug, telling her to _keep these boys in line, Mad Max._ She bites back tears and scoffs, _that's barely a challenge._

* * *

Susan cries at her graduation, sobbing fat tears into Max’s hair despite her best efforts to avoid her mother’s crushing embrace. She only has one daughter, so Max’ll let it slide.

Later, as she sits with the boys in a shitty diner they frequent, tossing fries at each other and pissing off the overworked waitresses, she lets everything wash over her for a few seconds. They made it through literal hell and back and that’s pretty fucking badass. She fills Billy’s jacket a bit better now, though it still swamps her shoulders and waist.

Max cut her hair to her shoulders during her junior year and swore she could hear Billy telling her she almost looks cool. El calls it bitchin’ when she visits, her own hair falling past her collarbones in pretty little waves, soft to Max's touch as they watch reruns of shitty televisions shows they used to hate.

Max decides to go back to California for a gap year before choosing if she wants to go to school or not, wants to spend the year with the ocean and the mostly positive memories of her brother, before the world and his dad turned him mean and angry.

Steve moves on, coming back to Hawkins for a visit with a pretty girl with dark brown hair and eyes bluer than she’s ever seen, banging her head to The Cure and making Steve smile without guilt. Max’s chest feels full and light when shes sees them, laughing as Steve tells her stories of the kids he teaches at a daycare in the city. Robin volunteers at a shelter for teenagers who left families that never deserved them in the first place. 

They go back _home_ a few days before Max does, storming into Cali with her shitty old car and a face splitting smile. As she unpacks her bag into the falling apart dresser that her new roommate found on the side of the road, Max finally knows that deep in her bones, she’s gonna be just fine. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, This is my first fic and I just felt like Max deserves some kind of catharsis, mostly for my own sake lol. Comments are really really appreciated! All mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title from Bruises by Lewis Capaldi.


End file.
